Rishabh Pant is set to make his ODI debut in the first of the five-match series against West Indies. Pant was named in the XII that had six batsmen, Ravindra Jadeja as allrounder, and five bowlers. The series begins in Guwahati on Sunday.
This has been a remarkable turnaround for Pant’s year after it had seemed, in the lead-up to the England tour, that he was far away from making himself an international career before the World Cup in 2019. Having played T20 internationals in the Nidahas Trophy in Sri Lanka, he was left out of the limited-overs sides in favour of MS Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik.
Pant was not even originally part of the India A first-class side on the shadow tour of England, which was used for selection hints. Then it emerged that Test regular Wriddhiman Saha had not recovered from his injury in time, and India hurriedly placed Pant in the unofficial Tests side, and named him in the Test squad, back-up to Karthik. Midway during the series, Karthik was dropped, and Pant – even though still a work in progress as a pure wicketkeeper – grabbed his chance with a hundred at The Oval, the first by an India wicketkeeper in England, Australia, South Africa or New Zealand. He followed it up with a pair of attacking 92s in the Tests against West Indies.
The big gloves will remain will MS Dhoni. Karthik is the man making way for Pant once again. India will hope Pant can address some of their middle-order woes.
Also returning to the side was captain Virat Kohli, which meant KL Rahul was out again. In the absence of the injured allrounder Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja was entrusted with the job.
India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Virat Kohli (capt.), 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 Rishabh Pant, 6 MS Dhoni (wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja , 8 Kuldeep Yadav, 9 Yuzvendra Chahal, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Mohammed Shami/ Khaleel Ahmed